Tales From the Big Board

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Bounty hunter Rufus Kraal and some of his cronies arrive on Geminion Secundus in search of the notorious Geminion gang leader Captain Clown. An extremely hazardous undertaking to say the least. Rufus and his friends are unlikely to survive their attempt to claim the bounty on The Clown's head, but then, Rufus has been in tight spots before.

Here Rufus is shown with his trusty bolt gun and a curious weapon which resembles a chainsword but which may in fact be some sort of force rod, since Rufus is a sanctioned psyker.

One of Rufus' oldest confederates, Bruno Kash has rejoined his old partner in hopes of getting a slice of the handsome price which has been placed on The Clown's head.

Squat adventurer Upston Yarbles normally sticks to treasure hunting and salvage operations but the price on The Clown's head was simply too big to walk away from, so Upston has, for better or worse, thrown his lot in with Rufus. Good luck, Upston.

Well known space pirate, thief, and roadie the Secundus Kid was recruited by Rufus because of his knowledge of Geminion Secundus and its gang culture. He was reared in one of the planet's worst hell holes, after all. Bruno Kash isn't too keen about The Kid's presence, however. He suspects The Kid may be working for The Clown. And he may be right.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Annnnnddddd...here's the newest regiment for my Hittite army. Not a very successful effort, unfortunately. From a distance they look okay, up close not so much. As my eyes get older and weaker, faces get tougher to paint.

The Ral Partha Hittite line did not include any actual Hittite infantry figures other than the Royal Guards. The troopers in this unit are the "Anatolian ally" figures from the series and I assume they are meant to represent warriors from the ethnic Hittite colonies that dwelt far out in the Caucasus mountains. These settlements were far enough away from the heartland of the Hittite empire to maintain a degree of independence, but from time to time they did send contingents to fight in the armies of their western cousins.

I've painted them as early Hittites. Sort of. I've played pretty fast and loose with it.

My sources for this era claim that the Hittites were the first people in the Mediterranean basin to discover iron, and iron weapons must surely have played a crucial role in the Hittites' successes. They were also very successful in keeping this technological breakthrough a secret for a very long time. It was only when the Hittite empire was finally over-run by the Sea Peoples that the secret got out and spread. I've painted some of these warriors with iron spear heads, while others, perhaps less wealthy, still use bronze.

So. Although this regiment is a bit underwhelming visually, alas, it at least represents meaningful progress on my Hittite starter army. I still need to get a general, a heavy chariot squadron and some skirmishers finished. Then I can wrap it up for now and move on to my Egyptians.

And now...back to work on more Rogue Trader 40k stuff. I've made a lot of crazy promises to myself about what RT stuff I'd get done before fall.

Friday, June 9, 2017

The mighty Inquisitor Malleo Smyte arrives on Geminion Secundus as part of the Inquisitorial Team dispatched to the Wailing Reach immediately prior to the outbreak of the third 'Stealer war.

Smyte had made his reputation as a young Inquisitor during the darkest days of the Second 'Stealer war, ruthlessly seeking out and purging 'stealer nests in the Geminions and also on Nepenthe. He frequently worked in tandem with Inquisitor Julius Byrne, the two making an especially formidable team.

Unlike his comrades Inquisitors Heng and Byrne, who favored the employment of what amounted to small armies of retainers, Smyte was a brooding and solitary creature.

He was normally accompanied only by a weird biomechanoid servitor and the strange being known as Lazarus Alte.

Alte's frail as wizened appearance belied his true value, for he was a master astropath and sanctioned psyker who wielded powers of appalling potency.

Well, its been fun working on these Inquisitors. I suppose though, that this means its time I got off my butt and started painting up some genestealers for them to fight.

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Enfilade, the convention of the Northwest Historical Miniature Gamer Society is held every Memorial Day weekend in Olympia, WA. And every Memorial Day weekend for the last three years has found me there. There were tons of great and imaginative games on offer in the main room, and I frenziedly snapped away with my camera whenever I got a break from hurling fistfuls of dice at the table. I took a lot of pictures this weekend, more than in the past, and I'm throwing a bunch of them up here just for fun. Enjoy.

First up, Doug and Seth ran a splendid Battle of Eckmuhl game, using their own rule set. They always put on a fast, furious and fun game.

Some naive person put me in charge of Davout's enormous corps at the very heart of the French army.

Like some monster Oliphant, my horde fought its way up the table, annihilating my friend Ron's corps and - briefly- taking some of my objectives.

The Austrians had done a good job at hollowing my formations out on my way there, however, and I turned out to be pretty easy prey when, in the game's final rounds, they threw their entire reserve at me and wiped me out. Oh well. Getting wiped out is always worth it if you can destroy one of your friends first. Thanks to Doug and Seth for another terrific game.

While the French and Austrians were kicking the hell out of each other, a pretty little dwarven civil war game was going on a table away. The name of the game was "It all started with a labor dispute."

Reminds me of The Tragedy of Mcdeath....

That wasn't the only underground battle being fought. Here Germans are counterattacking in a large and lovely Vimy Ridge game that attracted a lot of attention.

great stuff.

On Sunday Ron hosted an absolutely splendid Pulp Alley scenario. Part Casablanca, Part Raiders of the Lost Ark and part ultra violence...

Evil Doers congregate in the warehouse. This particular bunch never actually got around to doing any evil, but they certainly looked menacing enough.

To win, you have to successfully run some errands around town and then get your schweethheart to the plane before the Nazis take over.

My league was the Vichy French.I wad trying to get things in town more or less under control so as to keep the Germans off my back.

Rick kept following me around trying to talk me into letting him have the necessary paperwork to get himself and his dame out of Casablanca but, unsentimental swine that I was, I wasn't having any of it.

I had achieved all my objectives and was on my way to the plane when these yokels appeared in my path and started trying to kill all my guys!

The nerve! After all, I was only trying to win. Eventually I became irritated enough with them that I lost interest in winning and, out of sheer spite, focused on trying to kill them.

Meanwhile the Brotherhood of the Crescent absconded with the Ark of the Covenant and flew away to win the game, which just goes to show me.

...of course the squad also needs a lot of other lads to carry ammo and pull security and stuff like that...

Anyway...big step forward on the Ork horde. I still want to add two more squads of boys, two squads of Gretchin, a squad of power armored nobs, a dreadnought, a hop splat gun, warboss and a special cavalry unit. That will about do it.